Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190

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Safety Science
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Beirut explosion 2020: A case study for a large-scale urban blast simulation
G. Valsamos *, M. Larcher, F. Casadei
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the face of continued global urbanization, cities are challenged to satisfy increasing standards in terms of
Explosion event quality of life, environmental conditions, safety, security, health, economic growth and mobility. The concept of
Numerical analysis “smart cities” aims at utilising advanced technologies, artificial intelligence and high computational capacity to
Fluid-structure interaction
increase their resilience and improve the services provided to the citizens. Computation-based numerical sim­
Structural damage
Human injuries
ulations have been essentially used to estimate the effects of explosion events in urban environments in terms of
Geospatial data both structural damage and human casualties. These provide urban planners and decision makers with valuable
Protection of public spaces information for vulnerability assessment and aid developing prevention or mitigation solutions. In this article, we
present a framework to generate a 3D large-scale urbanistic finite element model, where the desired geospatial
data are extracted from the open-source world map OpenStreetMap. The model is used to simulate blast wave
propagation effects in a wide urban area taking into account the reflections at building surfaces via a sophisti­
cated Fluid-Structure interaction technique integrated in the EUROPLEXUS explicit finite element method
software. The explosion in the Port of Beirut in Lebanon, which took place on the 4th of August 2020, was
remarkable for the large amount of explosive material causing considerable damage to surrounding structures
and a high number of deaths and injured. Such characteristics make the event suitable for assessing the per­
formance of the proposed computational approach in a widely exposed (by the blast wave) urban zone.

1. Introduction
The blast event of the 4th August 2020, which devastated large parts
of Beirut, was one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history.
Approximately 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate representing 1.1 ki­
lotons of TNT equivalent, stored in a warehouse at the port, exploded
causing extensive damage over the entire capital and was felt in coun­
tries such as Turkey, Syria, Israel and Cyprus more than 250 km away.
The aftermath of the explosion reveals at least 200 deaths and over
6,000 injured people while the 15 billion $ in property damage is leaving
an estimate of 300,000 people homeless. A similar explosion due to non-
properly stored ammunitions happened in Cyprus in 2011. The magni­
tude of the explosion was much smaller but again the consequences on
structural damage and human casualties were significant. There have
been recorded more than 30 disasters related to ammonium nitrate ex­
plosions in the past 100 years, with many losses. This dictates the need
for appropriate risk assessment of locations like ports, airports or mili­
tary warehouses located close to densely populated urban centres.
The Beirut event attracted attention from political, humanitarian and
scientific groups all over the world. A team in Sheffield University has
already presented (Rigby et al., 2020) an innovative method for yield
estimation based on videos uploaded to social media from the afore­
mentioned case. A similar study to estimate the explosive quantity using
publicly-available tools and data has been presented by Stennett et al.
(2020), while an alternative approach for the near-field source charac­
terization based on seismometers has been performed in (Bundesanstalt
fur Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, 2020). Pasman et al. (2020)
investigate the details of the transition of decomposing ammonium ni­
trate to the detonation mechanism, highlighting that the yield estima­
tion of the Beirut explosion was more likely 2,000 tonnes instead of
2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. Much more information could be
obtained by using numerical tools for urban applications. These tools
support decision making in various fields of application in urban plan­
ning such as wind flow simulation, solar hour analysis, dispersion of
pollutants or toxic gases, flooding and blast scenarios simulation (Franke
et al., 2011; Suomisto et al., 2019). The tools use a 3D model of the city
as an input for the analysis and then map the results on that model. In
the work of Willenborg (2016) semantic 3D city models are employed to
deduct a finite volume based representation of the intersection of the
buildings with the fluid environment. Mohr et al. (2019) creates first an
accurate urban 3D reconstruction from geo-referenced aerial images,
which is also enriched with semantic information. The generated

* Corresponding author.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105190
Received 20 November 2020; Received in revised form 8 January 2021; Accepted 25 January 2021
Available online 6 February 2021
0925-7535/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
G. Valsamos et al.
geometry is then used for numerical investigation on the structural
integrity of the buildings under blast scenarios. These works gave a
major contribution to disaster intervention units, assisting in imple­
menting emergency response plans or providing novel inputs for
training, preparation and prevention.
According to the action plan (European Commission, 2017), issued
by the European Commission to support the Member States in the pro­
tection of public spaces, priority of the EC is the development of com­
mon guidance, testing of equipment, encouraging harmonisation of
standards and exchanging good practices. Part of this plan aims at
providing technical solutions to enhance the security of public spaces
preserving their feeling of openness, an essential characteristic of
democratic society, pointing at the so-called “security by design”
concept. In line with that priority, numerical simulations of blast sce­
narios in urban environments, related to terroristic or accidental cause,
can provide an accurate prediction of the consequences of the explosion
and can evaluate potential mitigation measures. Moreover, numerical
reproduction of various alternative scenarios of the blast event can offer
valuable insight into the clarification of the real conditions of the phe­
nomenon for the decision makers or for media discussions. Alterna­
tively, a qualitative understanding of the blast wave propagation and of
its effects on buildings and humans can become an essential advantage
for training of disaster response personnel.
This article proposes a numerical framework that is able to generate
in a simple and robust manner a 3D urbanistic finite element (FE) model
of a city, taking geospatial data from the open source world map tool
OpenStreetMap (OSM) (https://www.openstreetmap.org/). The data
from OSM is freely accessible and can provide the desired information
for the majority of the cities in the world. Then, the urbanistic FE model
is used as a basis for the blast analysis through an advanced Fluid-
Structure interaction (FSI) technique where the fluid and the struc­
tural mesh are topologically de-coupled. For the numerical simulation
the EUROPLEXUS (EPX) (EUROPLEXUS, 2017) computer code, which is
jointly developed by CEA DMT Saclay and by the European Commissions
Joint Research Centre Ispra, has been employed. The code application
domain is the numerical simulation of fast transient phenomena such as
explosions, crashes and impacts in complex three-dimensional fluid-
structure systems. Major objective of the study was the efficient and
accurate calculation of a numerical model, covering a wide area of the
city (in a range of kms) containing a high number of buildings and
consisting of an appropriately huge number of fluid elements to repre­
sent the environment where the blast wave propagates. To reduce the
computational complexity, the buildings are considered as rigid and the
damage is estimated according to the peak incident overpressure, based
on standard tables from the literature (Hardwick, 2009; Glasstone and
Dolan, 1977; Stephens, 1970). Special attention is given to the injury
risk both for primary (direct interaction of the blast wave with the
human body) and for secondary (impact of flying debris on the human
body) effects. In the current study, the secondary blast injuries are
directly connected to the failure of glazing.
2. Numerical framework
Predicting the propagation of a blast wave within dense urban set­
tings is a difficult challenge, because of a few peculiarities related to the
nature of the geometrical model. The main characteristic is that the high
geometrical complexity of the numerous structural parts does not allow
simplified algorithms based on empirical data (Baker, 1973; Kingery and
Bulmash, 1984) to give an accurate solution. Wave propagation effects
like channelling due to urban canyons (formed by the main streets be­
tween tall buildings), shadowing or interference of multiple wave fronts
(stemming from the reflections on the building surfaces) can only be
captured with appropriate FSI approaches. Additionally, the open na­
ture of the urban cityscape in combination with the big charge of
explosive material (in case of the Beirut explosion, in general required
by the scenario definition) implies that the range of the area under
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Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190
investigation should be large. The range of the investigated zone may
expand into a few kilometres containing a big number of structures (a
few thousands) while also the height (due to the existence of sky­
scrapers) frequently exceeds 200 m. The large-scale total volume of the
fluid (air where the blast wave propagates) consist of a huge number of
elements (in the range of millions), therefore the computational effi­
ciency plays a major role in the selection of the numerical scheme.
Simplifications of the geometry or of the numerical approach are also
necessary, as long as they don’t significantly affect the accuracy of the
solution. The proposed framework is separated in two steps; first, the FE
model is generated from data obtained by OSM and second, the nu­
merical analysis of the blast event is performed by the EPX code.
2.1. Use of geospatial data to reconstruct the 3D model of the city
The term geospatial, which has recently gained popularity, is used to
define collective data and associated technology that has a geographic or
locational component, such as coordinates, address, city etc. Over the
last years, relevant technology used to acquire, manipulate and store
geographic information, like geographical information system (GIS),
geographical positioning system (GPS), remote sensing and others, met
great progress making geospatial data much more accessible, and
constantly improving in both quality and coverage. The European
Union, for example, is enforcing that via the INSPIRE initiative by
creating accessible spatial data infrastructure for the purposes of EU
environmental policies (https://www.inspire.ec.europa.eu). Several
cities have published their geospatial data for many further fields. Even
if the quality of that data might be very accurate, the data depends
strongly on the format used, which may be very different from case to
case. Sometimes the data are not complete since some information is
missing. Therefore, such data need special treatment before their
transformation to a FE model. The OpenStreetMap project
(https://www.openstreetmap.org/) has been collecting for many years
geospatial data on an openly available platform. The project relies on the
work of volunteers and therefore the quality of the map is not the same
in all parts of the world. Nevertheless, the great majority of cities all over
the world have reached a level where at least building cross sections are
included in detail.
OSM enables the user to export the data for the zone of interest in
XML format. The exported data contain for example information con­
cerning the buildings, the streets or the regional borders. For the current
study, the building data has been used as the most relevant. The
necessary information are the coordinates and the connectivity of the
nodes that form the contour of the building, as well as its height. The
height of the building can be given either as a direct value or as a number
of levels, where a simple transformation is required (multiplying the
number of the levels with the value of the height of each level, taken to
be 3 m). The OSM file may include other data for the building like the
name (when available) or the type (hotel, police station, demolished)
that are currently not used, but which could be used in the future as a
complementary piece of information. OSM stores the data in the WGS-84
coordinate system, using latitude and longitude, therefore the data is
transformed into a local Cartesian coordinate system using meters,
which is more intuitive for a FE analysis.
The contour of each building in the OSM xml data is represented by a
closed polygon. The extracted polygon can be discretised with shell el­
ements to form the footprint and the ceiling (by translating in the ver­
tical direction) of the building. According to FE fundamentals
quadrilateral elements are preferable instead of triangular ones, but
since frequently the obtained shape is complicated a mixed strategy is
selected where a minor number of triangular elements is accepted. The
outer walls of the building are generated by translating the contour of
the discretised ceiling surface along the vertical direction. Fig. 1 depicts
schematically the steps followed for the construction of the 3D FE mesh
of the buildings. For the current study, the desired information from
OSM is extracted through a Python script. The script converts the OSM
G. Valsamos et al. Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190

Fig. 1. Process to convert OSM data into a 3D FE model a) Perimeter of two buildings as presented in OSM, b) FE discretization of the footprint (contour in black
thick line) of the buildings and c) translation of the contours in vertical direction to create the walls and the ceilings.

data into a harmonized format for the pre-processor of the FE analysis. the city including the building materials and terrain attributes. Another
Then special procedures via the CAST3M software (CEA CAST3M) source of potential uncertainty of the existing data is the height of the
produce the FE model of the buildings for the urban area under buildings. Currently OSM is based mainly on data inserted from users of
investigation. the platform in a volunteer manner. A more systematic methodology as
The FE model is oriented towards numerical analysis of blast wave for example satellite image processing would be able to give accurate
propagation, which is computationally demanding due to the large size and automatic identification of the actual height of the buildings.
of the fluid domain, hence the level of represented structural details
should be limited to only the most relevant features. Moreover, analysis
2.2. Numerical simulation of the blast event
may suffer from large memory consumption if superfluous information
is included. Small or mobile structures are not contributing much to a
A simplified approach based on TNT equivalence and scaled distance
more accurate solution, while significantly increasing the computational
(Kingery and Bulmash, 1984) can give a fast solution but has restrictions
cost. The mesh resolution of the buildings is a trade-off between the size
regarding accuracy when the application employs complicated geome­
of the model and the level of geometrical precision. Commonly, an
tries, where effects such as channelling, shadowing and multiple re­
average value of 3 m gives a sufficiently accurate representation (the
flections are dominant. For explosive scenarios analysis in urban
size can reach locally lower values depending on the size of the repre­
environments, the geometrical complexity disturbs the hemispherical
sented structure). The approach incorporates with great accuracy all the
blast wave propagation. Therefore, computationally expensive com­
important geometric details of the buildings in an urban environment.
puter fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are required. The most versatile
Direct accessibility of the required geospatial data and the plain manner
CFD approach engages FSI techniques in such a way that the blast wave
of treating the relevant geometrical information makes the approach
interacts with the surrounding structures, allowing a more precise
appealing for large-scale urban cityscape 3D models all over the world.
approximation both for the fluid (air where the blast wave propagates)
Other GIS urban models can be for sure used in the same way but scripts
and for structural (buildings) domain.
would need to be adapted to the different data format. Finally, it should
be noted that the option to construct a 3D model based on architectural
2.2.1. FSI modelling
building plans is often a laborious task that needs a lot of manual
In the current study an embedded FSI method is selected, using a
intervention, which in general leads to a much more time consuming
sophisticated detection strategy that allows the fluid and the structural
approach.
mesh to be geometrically independent (Casadei et al., 2011; Casadei and
The steps of the FE model reconstruction are presented in Fig. 2.
Larcher, 2010). With this approach the fluid domain can be conveniently
The evolving remote sensing technology and other approaches like
described by a geometrically structured mesh covering the area under
artificial intelligence could optimize the approach by compiling missing
consideration. This interaction detection strategy greatly simplifies the
data. One example is the material of the buildings, which even if fore­
preparation of the numerical model while at the same time it is able to
seen in the data format is only to a very minor extent tagged in OSM for
handle a broader range of problems. Structural failure until fragmen­
the time being. Some cities are already very advanced concerning the
tation as well as large rotations can be treated precisely and efficiently.
available data as for example Singapore city that has launched the
The interaction between the two domains is enforced through a so-called
Virtual Singapore digital twin platform, which features a 3D model of
“weak” formulation where pressure forces are directly transmitted from

3
G. Valsamos et al.
Fig. 2. Reconstruction of the 3D FE model (c) of Beirut from OSM geospatial data (a, b).
the fluid to the structure, while structure motion provides a weak
feedback on the physical status of the fluid. In the weak formulation
there is no need to solve any linear system of coupling equations, making
it advantageous when multi-processing techniques are employed.
2.2.2. Fluid domain
Blast waves occurring due to explosions are characterized by high
pressures and inertia forces, having great impact on the fluid density.
The air is described as an ideal gas so it is assumed that it behaves like a
standard compressible fluid with negligible viscous forces. For an
inviscid flow assumption the Navier-Stokes equation can be simplified to
the so-called Euler equations. All kinds of fluid flow and transport
phenomena are governed by basic conservation principles such as con­
servation of mass, momentum and energy. In the Eulerian formulation
used for the fluid domain, the mesh (referential domain) is fixed while
the fluid moves relative to these fixed grid points. Finite Volume (FV)
description is selected and the numerical fluxes are calculated using the
approximate Harten-Lax-van-Leer-Contact (HLLC) Riemann solver
(Toro, 2009). The FV achieve second-order accuracy in space and in time
and that can be a valuable advantage when high spatial precision
(steeper fronts) is needed or when waves are traveling over a long dis­
tance. Their ability to better capture the high pressure gradients makes
FV more popular even though typically their computational cost is
higher than that of FE. In order to achieve second-order accuracy in
space, the code uses the Green-Gauss reconstruction of the conservative
variables at the interfaces between fluid volumes, from the values at the
volume centroids, by using the spatial gradients at the centroids.
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Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190
2.2.3. Structural domain
For the structural domain the more intuitive Lagrangian formulation
is used where the mesh is attached to the material particles. The gov­
erning equations are based on the principal of virtual work representing
dynamic equilibrium (conservation of momentum), while a second-
order accurate time integration scheme (Central Difference scheme)
guarantees high accuracy of numerical results. In the current approach,
the structure is considered as rigid by blocking all the structural nodes in
all spatial directions. This simplifying assumption is made since we are
not interested in an accurate determination of the response of the
buildings, but just in the calculation of the maximum applied pressure
and impulse on the outer surfaces, which is necessary to estimate a
posteriori the level of structural damage using empirical formulas.
Considering the structure as flexible (as it is typically done in more
specific FSI simulations with EPX involving smaller models) would
largely increase the computational complexity. At the same time, the
preparation of a full-fledged, deformable structural model would need
much more information (material properties, thickness of the structural
elements, detailed geometry like windows position, etc.) and that is
beyond the scope of the present investigation.
2.2.4. Blast load
For the representation of the blast load in the fluid domain the
compressed balloon method (phenomenological model) (Larcher and
Casadei, 2010) is selected for the sake of simplicity. The pressure-time
function resulting from a compressed balloon can approximately
match the curve of an air blast wave (Karlos and Solomos, 2013). The
amount of compression energy is calibrated with the maximum pressure
G. Valsamos et al.
or the impulse. This idea was initiated by Brode (1955) where he pro­
posed the use of a balloon filled by gas at an initial pressure of:
ETNT (γ − 1)
pBrode = +p0
Vbal
Here ETNT is the total initial energy of the charge, Vbal is the volume of
the balloon, p0 is the atmospheric air pressure, and γ is the heat capacity
ratio of the gas in the balloon. In the literature (Baker et al., 1983) it is
typical to relate the energy of the charge to the mass of the charge MTNT
expressed in equivalent TNT kilograms, by assuming that 1 kg of TNT
releases 4.52 × 106 J of energy, so that: ETNT = MTNT ⋅4.52⋅106 . Brode’s
equation is used by several authors, e.g. (Ritzel and Matthews, 1997), to
calculate the far-field behaviour of an air blast wave in an easy and
effective way. The calculation cost is relatively low since there is no need
for a very fine mesh resolution in the vicinity of the detonation, while
the material law is very simple. The estimation of the pressure in the
region near the balloon is not very accurate. Therefore, the method is not
advised for low stand-off distances. However, the method provides
remarkable accuracy in the remaining regime of stand-off distances,
which is essential for urban blast analysis.
2.2.5. Damage and injuries estimation criteria.
The effects of the explosions on structures and human beings is
commonly quantified via the peak overpressure and the impulse of the
overpressure. These two parameters can be combined in so-called
Pressure-Impulse (P-I) diagrams. Iso-damage curves can be added to
the diagram to define the level of damage on various types of buildings
(wood, metallic, concrete or masonry structures) and glazing (annealed,
tempered or laminates glass). The Department of Defense Explosives
Safety Board (DDESB) has developed P-I damage curves for different
buildings and building components (Hardwick, 2009), associated with
incident overpressure values. Damage estimation with P-I curves re­
quires knowledge of the characteristics (size and material type) of the
buildings. However, that piece of information is not yet available for the
structures investigated here. Therefore, a simpler approximation is
considered. A lot of work has been conducted towards that direction as
in the frequently cited reference (Glasstone and Dolan, 1977) that pro­
vides an estimation of the effects of increasing blast pressure on struc­
tures and people. Stephens (1970) presents a quick overview of damage
classified in four levels as depicted in Table 1. A building is totally
destroyed if it is damaged beyond economical repair. Severe damage
implies partial collapse and/or failure of some bearing members. Mod­
erate damage suggests that the structure is usable but repairs are
required. Finally, light damage consists of glazing failure and light
cracks in walls or roofs.
The determination of the human injury risk is typically associated
with empirical formulas from the literature (Ferradàs, 2008; Solomos
et al., 2020) using as an input either the impulse and the peak pressure of
the air blast wave, or the kinetic energy of the structural fragments
(Lewis et al., 1978). The existing formulations can describe several ef­
fects of blast injuries, from primary (head impact, lung haemorrhage,
eardrum rupture) to secondary (impact of the flying debris on the
human body). Fig. 3 depicts the Pressure-Impulse curves for 50% human
injury risk after the three main categories of primary blast injuries.
Secondary blast injuries can be of higher importance for infrastructures
with numerous fragile structural elements as for instance the glazing
panels, massively used in contemporary buildings (Valsamos et al.,
Table 1
Damage classification of buildings according to (Stephens, 1970).
Damage level Side-on overpressure [kPa]
Total destruction >83
Severe >35
Moderate >17
Light >3.5
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Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190
Fig. 3. P-I diagram for primary blast injury risk of 50%, from (Ferradàs, 2008).
2019). Calculation of the generated fragments in a wide urban envi­
ronment would be computationally extremely expensive, thus the sec­
ondary injury risk zones are described in terms of expected glass
breakage based on Table 2. A comprehensive description of indicative
impairment criteria for risk assessment of major accidents can also be
found in (HSE, 2009).
2.3. Combination with other geospatial data and overview
The results from the blast analysis can be merged with other geo­
spatial data covering other perspectives such as population density or
regional asset values. As an example, Fig. 4 presents the population
spatial distribution of Beirut city, based on data from (http://arcg.
is/0yOzzi0). Mapping of population data with the results of the urban
explosion investigation, can give valuable insight in the number of po­
tential casualties and injuries or in the number of displaced citizens (left
homeless) after the event. Alternatively, the combination of the damage
level of the properties with their asset value can estimate the economic
impact of the investigated scenario or the cost of the possible repairs,
providing policy makers with useful information on the amount of the
needed reconstruction budget. Merging the results from blast analysis
with the city map can also assist on understanding the damage level of
the critical infrastructures such as hospitals, police departments, energy
or water supply etc. and optimize the emergency intervention strategy.
Fig. 5 presents step by step the overview of the proposed numerical
framework.
3. Numerical results
The August 2020 Beirut explosion event has been used in the present
work as a case study for the presented numerical approach, since it
concerns a big explosion in a dense and wide urban environment. The
geospatial data are extracted for OSM (https://www.openstreetmap.
org/) and processed through a Python script. For the construction of
the FE mesh of the structure special procedures in the CAST3M (CEA
CAST3M) software have been developed, as described in the previous
section. The numerical analysis of the blast scenario is performed in the
Table 2
Classification of glazing failure thresholds according to (Glasstone and Dolan,
1977).
Damage description Side-on overpressure
[kPa]
Sonic boom glass failure 0.3
Threshold for glass breakage 1
Windows shattered, occasionally damage to window 3.5–7
frames
G. Valsamos et al. Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190

EPX (EUROPLEXUS, 2017) explicit code, while the results are processed
with the ParaView post-processing tool (http://www.paraview.org).

3.1. Numerical model

The numerical model consist of the structural FE mesh that includes

Fig. 4. Population density map of Beirut city, data from (http://arcg.
is/0yOzzi0).
the buildings and the ground and of the air fluid mesh which is simply
superposed to it (embedded FSI approach), see Fig. 6. The area under
investigation covers a wide zone of the city (2,350 m in the longitudinal
direction and 1,650 m in the latitudinal direction, or 3,877,500 m2)
close to the port, where the detonation centre was located. The zone
contains about 2,500 buildings, resulting into a total of 268,466 finite
elements (with the ground). The height of the fluid domain is set to 150
m in order to cover the highest buildings of the area, effectively leading
to a total volume of 426,525,000 m3 and 4,497,900 finite volumes
(average mesh size of 5 m). A parametric study highlighted that
decreasing the size of the finite volumes, does not really change the
solution, while increasing significantly the computational cost. The
structural domain is assumed to behave as rigid. Therefore, all the
related nodes are blocked (in all degree of freedoms). Since the struc­
tural elements are not deformable, they are not included in the calcu­
lation of the critical time step of the explicit integration scheme to speed-
up the simulation. Appropriate absorbing (infinite volume) boundary
elements are attached to the surfaces of the fluid domain which interface
with the open space, that is to all external surfaces of the fluid domain

Fig. 5. Overview of the proposed numerical framework.

6
G. Valsamos et al.
Fig. 6. Top view of the numerical model of Beirut city for the blast analysis, the
opaque rectangle represents the fluid domain.
apart from the bottom, which coincides with the ground. Perfect gas
material law is employed for the air in the fluid domain while the blast
loading (1.1 kilotons of TNT) is introduced with a 14 m radius com­
pressed balloon.
3.2. Blast wave propagation in the urban environment
Fig. 7 presents the propagation of the blast wave at four chosen time
instants, from which it can be observed how the wave front interacts
with the surrounding structures, and how this alters the ideal hemi­
spherical shape. Multiple effects caused by the interaction of the blast
wave with the complex urban geometry can be observed, such as
shadowing (a wave impacting a building in the front part weakens at the
rear part) and channelling (strengthening of the wave due to urban
canyon formations). The four time instants have been selected based on
the empirical formulas of the hemispherical incident blast wave for the
Fig. 7. Blast wave propagation in the urban environment for four selected time instants.
7
Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190
simulated event. So, the first instant corresponds to a stand-off distance
of 300 m (alternatively, the blast wave has travelled for 300 m) and
respectively 500 m for the second, 750 m for the third and 1000 m for
the fourth instant. Table 3 shows a comparison of the blast data between
the numerical simulation (Urban Blast Simulation, UBS) and the
empirical (ideal) reference values. It can be observed that for lower
stand-off distances there is a good accordance since the interaction of the
blast wave with the surrounding buildings is not dominant yet. As the
stand-off distance increases, the discrepancy becomes more and more
significant for the peak overpressure and the impulse, as expected, since
the blast wave deviates from the ideal shape, thus highlighting the need
to perform this type of advanced analysis. The arrival time is not
significantly affected from the interaction of the blast wave with the
structural obstacles, therefore the comparison between the two ap­
proaches shows good accordance even for large stand-off distances.
3.3. Damage on the buildings and crater formation
Estimation of the damage level of the buildings is the most intuitive
output of the numerical analysis derived from the maximum side-on
overpressure. Due to lack of information on the type of the buildings,
the damage estimation is based on a general approach as presented in
Table 1, where the damage is associated with the side-on peak over­
pressure. An extension of the light damage level has been employed to
include also the windows breakage threshold of 1 kPa (as indicated in
Table 2). Fig. 8 presents the damage level prediction from the numerical
analysis, which is compared with data obtained from satellite image
processing. The detailed damage assessment obtained by Copernicus
emergency management service (EMS) portal (European Commission,
2020) is performed based on visual interpretation of very high-
resolution post-event optical satellite imagery. Despite the fact that
there are several uncertainties in the numerical analysis, it seems that it
can provide a qualitatively good prediction of the damage index of the
structures. A more precise preparation of the numerical model, using
more information on aspects such as the type of the building and the
detonation conditions would increase the accuracy of the results. In
Fig. 8 it can be observed that the highly affected area (moderate damage
G. Valsamos et al. Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190

Table 3
Comparison of numerical values (UBS) with empirical formulas for various blast parameters.
Distance [m] Tarrival [s] Pmax [kPa] Impulse [kPa s]

Ideal UBS error % Ideal UBS error % Ideal UBS error %

300 0.34 0.31 8.8 123.7 125.1 − 1.1 10.2 10.6 − 3.9
500 0.81 0.78 3.7 45.6 45.7 − 0.2 6.3 6.5 − 3.1
750 1.46 1.43 2.1 23.9 23.2 2.9 4.3 4.2 2.3
1000 2.15 2.03 5.5 15.4 10.5 31.8 3.3 2.8 15.2

Fig. 8. a) Estimation of damage on buildings with

numerical solution (dashed line encloses the high
damage area) and location of hospitals affected by
the blast 1) Rosary hospital, 2) Lebanese Red Cross,
3) Saint George hospital and 4) Karantina govern­
mental hospital b) Comparison with solution ob­
tained from satellite image processing from
Copernicus EMS portal (European Commission,
2020). (For interpretation of the references to colour
in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the
web version of this article.)

level and higher) has a bigger range (based on the detonation centre) in
the longitudinal direction (1,900 m) than in the latitudinal direction
(1,350 m). This indicates once more that the damaged zone diverges
from the ideal hemispherical shape due to the interaction of the blast
wave with the urban setting. Moreover, the range of the damage zone
calculated from the empirical formulas would exceed 4,000 m, two
times more than the range calculated from the advanced numerical
analysis.
Fig. 8a indicates also the location of three hospitals included in the
damaged zone resulting from the numerical simulation. Indeed, the
oldest Lebanese hospital Saint George hospital was forced to shut down
after sustaining severe damages in every floor. The emergency floor,
serving 160 patients, had to be evacuated, a severe blow at the forefront
of the fight against Covid-19 pandemic. More than 100 hospital staff
sustained injuries ranging from mild to critical while other four lost their
lives. Another hospital (Rosary) has been rendered non-operational,
deteriorating the health service capacity of the city during this critical
period. The numerical blast analysis was able to predict the damage of
these hospitals, increasing the credibility of the approach. In total 4
hospital buildings have been affected in the investigated area as depic­
ted in Fig. 8a, deteriorating the already overloaded from the pandemic
health system capacity. Validation of the actual damage of the hospital
buildings related to the explosion can be found in the press published the
days after the event (UNICEF, 2021; Facebook, 2021).
Fig. 9 shows the population density overlaid with the building
damage estimation obtained from the numerical analysis. The damage

8
G. Valsamos et al.
Fig. 9. Population density overlaid with the building damage levels obtained
from numerical analysis (population data from (http://arcg.is/0yOzzi0).
level has been projected in the whole zone (not only on the buildings) to
be more easily combined with the population information. By cumu­
lating the population numbers located in the highly damaged zone
(moderate damage level and higher), we estimate that approximately
14,500 people are affected (left homeless). Including also the zones
where light damage was observed, the number of affected people would
increase drastically. The numerical analysis is limited to the selected
area (fluid domain) excluding potential structural damage in a wider
zone, which is already evident by the fact that the damage level is not
diminished along the borders of the investigated area.
The image of the crater formed in the port in the vicinity of the
detonation centre had been circulated a lot in social media shortly after
the accident, making it a landmark of the event. From the engineering
point of view, it is interesting to understand if the blast analysis is able to
predict the size and the form of the crater. Fig. 10 presents a comparison
between the numerical analysis and the satellite image in the area after
the explosion. The numerical output depicts the zone where the reflected
overpressure is above 15 MPa, a threshold that is based on typical
compressive strength of concrete structures. The numerical solution is
promising since is able to predict both the size (approximately 125 m)
and the shape of the crater. A more detailed representation of the local
geometry and of the detonation conditions would give a more accurate
response but this would also increase the computational cost.
3.4. Human injuries - glass breakage
Numerical blast analysis can provide valuable information on the
human casualties through the primary and the secondary injury esti­
mation. Fig. 11a presents the high risk zone of primary injuries (related
Fig. 10. Comparison of the a) numerical solution with the b) satellite image for the crater formation at the detonation centre.
9
Safety Science 137 (2021) 105190
to the direct impact of the blast wave with the human body). The black
dashed circle corresponds to the range calculated according to the
simplified empirical approach (not considering interaction of the blast
wave with the surrounding structures) and one can identify remarkable
differences between the two approaches. Using data from population
density for the prediction of casualties is not so straightforward since it is
awkward to know the spatial distribution of the citizens at the moment
of the explosion. But the number of residents in each district can give an
indication of the potentially affected population. In fact, in the zone of
high primary injury risk, there are about 800 inhabitants and this
number can give an indication of the potential casualties. The secondary
injuries, as already discussed above, are commonly connected to the
glass breakage and debris formation. Window breakage can lead to
significant human injury to building occupants. Therefore, Fig. 11b
presents the area where glazing failure is dominant followed by gener­
ation of a big number of fragments. This area is indicated as high risk for
secondary blast injuries. Again, it is very difficult to associate the
number of injuries with the population density because the formed
debris will affect partially the surrounding population (injury highly
depends on the location of the victim). Nevertheless, knowing the
population inhabiting the affected zone enables an estimation of the
potential injuries. It should be noted that the glazing failure prediction is
based on peak overpressure threshold, excluding the so-called negative
phase (pressure below the atmospheric value) damage, which can be
significant at high stand-off distances where the negative phase impulse
might be in some cases higher than the positive one.
4. Conclusions – How the tool can be useful in the urban
planning process
The article presents a numerical framework to estimate the conse­
quences of a blast event in a large-scale urban environment in different
perspectives, from structural damage to human casualties and critical
infrastructure resilience. The approach starts with geospatial informa­
tion obtained from the open source map OSM, followed by an efficient
process to generate an urbanistic large-scale FE model. The produced FE
model itself can be utilized from different simulation tools that support
urban planners, such as wind flow impact (on structures) and leakage of
pollutant or toxic substances in metropolitan landscapes. The successive
blast analysis provides a comprehensive solution even for non-expert
users in areas such as vulnerability assessment and planning of the
intervention emergency strategy after the event. Moreover, evaluation
of the potential prevention or mitigation measures can be facilitated
through parametric numerical analyses based on the presented scheme.
The urban blast simulation tool can be used for demonstration purposes
in trainings oriented to authorities for public spaces protection,
providing more complete information on the threats posed by explosive
events in urban settings. Valuable can be the contribution also in the
safety field as for example in determining the evacuation zone in a city in
case of disarm of a discovered old bomb. The municipality authorities
have to undergo a considerable cost to evacuate large areas in such
G. Valsamos et al.
Fig. 11. Human injuries zones related to the blast event, a) primary and b) secondary associated with glass breakage.
scenarios, and an accurate estimation on the potentially affected struc­
tures would assist the organisation strategy while minimizing the risks.
The results can conveniently be integrated into geospatial tools to
overlay with other information related to population density or asset
values, to sustain crucial component quantification for the policy
makers. Both the generated FE and the derived results can be shared via
the smart cities communication channels to be utilized from relevant
stakeholders.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
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